For most of my adult life people have called me controlling but it was always with a laugh. I saw it as a reflection on being in charge, directing traffic, knowing the information and planning ahead for everything.
Yesterday I saw a note that said I was controlling and it was in a bad way and I saw that. At first it hit me hard but as I reflected and did some reading I realized it was true.
They say that being controlling comes out of a place of fear and can be deep rooted in things that happened to you. Without going into a lot of detail, I had little to no control over my life growing up. I always played the “helper” to appease those around me. When I was 18 I was thrust into control. I did pretty well until I got married. I see that looking back. All the old fears crept in. I again became afraid that all of the negatives I had heard growing up would send my husband running away from me. I would wake up every morning with a feeling of dread and urgency. My mind would race through the list of people I cared about, pressing issues, needs and problems and anyone or anything that may need my attention for the day. I would then think through everything everyone in my family needed to do and devise a plan to make sure that no one forgot anything so there were no issues later. I am a control freak. I see that now. I like to know what will or won’t happen. I try to contain, predict, analyze and understand things more than I possibly can. I over think every mistake. If I mess up at work, my first thought is I would get fired; if I messed up at home, my first thought was my husband would leave; if I mess up with the kids, my first though is they will stay away from me. The list goes on and on. It is a losing game.
I worked/work hard and have succeed at most everything I do. However, it is hard for me to delegate. I don’t like unassigned seating and I do not make a good passenger in the car. Of course, I am really reliable, ambitious and I don’t lose tickets or keys or anything. I adhere to deadlines and get stuff done.
After 24 years of marriage and five kids I suddenly lost all that control. I fought it hard. I fought so hard that I damaged relationships with my family. The more anyone pulled away; left; shut down; the HARDER I fought for control. I was expecting everyone to be patient with me and accept what I felt when I wasn’t patient and couldn’t even name what was going on.
I think that what people don’t understand is that being controlling is not so much about the people around us as it is about us. Weird I know but when I seek/sought to control how everyone was going to get to a place or coordinating all the different schedules to a tee--it was not all about making sure they got there on time and safely. It was because I was afraid someone would be late and it would reflect poorly on me; it was because I feared if I left it to someone else if something went wrong I would be blamed; the list went/goes on and on. It became so ingrained.
I didn’t want to see that my controlling behavior was a mask for fear and anxiety. How that the times in my marriage and in raising my kids when I had no control made me grip harder and control harder and that being that way has damaged my relationships.
Today, I’m going to work on changing my pattern of behavior. I’m going to do this for ME, for my kids and my family. I am not going cold turkey…but baby steps to make sure I change the pattern of behavior rather than just mask it.
